Dorothy+Friedland

On April 26, 1921, 25-year-old Mrs. Dorothy Skinner Fri edland died at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Chicago after an abortion performed by an unknown perpetrator, perhaps one of the many doctors and midwives who operated lightly veiled abortion practices in Chicago in that era.

Dorothy, an Indiana native, was one of five lodgers in a small boarding house. She worked as a cashier in a candy shop.

Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. For more about abortion in this era, see [|Abortion in the 1920s].

During the first two thirds of the 20th Century, while abortion was still illegal, there was a massive drop in maternal mortality, including mortality from abortion. Most researches attribute this plunge to improvements in public health and hygiene, the development of blood transfusion techniques, and the introduction of antibiotics. Learn more [|here]. 

 Source: Homicide in Chicago Interactive

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